Yoga, the ancient healing system, seeks to bring about a harmonious union of the mind and the body. It's not just about physical exercises and helps with a wide range of physical and mental wellness issues, from easing depression to boosting cardio and circulatory health, enhanced respiration and maintaining a balanced metabolism among others. On the eve of International Yoga Day, Clea Arroyo, a reputed Copenhagen-based Yin Yoga Teacher and Craniosacral Therapist, shares how the traditional art and science could relieve lower back pain, an ailment suffered by a large number of people across the globe. She also provides a few ayurvedic solutions that one can easily practise amid today's hectic schedules.

As per Ayurveda, another traditional healing system from India, there are three fundamental constituents of the individual body — and the world around us — each made up of a different combination of five great elements: ether, air, fire, water, and earth. Pitta dosha is fire and water, and Kapha dosha earth and water. Vata dosha, ether and air, is most commonly involved with lower back pain. Lower back pain can be caused by various injuries, arthritis, illness, hernia or spinal problems. It can be in a specific area or spread over a large area.

The spine is not a straight line. Imagine the spine’s shape from the back of the torso: The neck (cervical spine) curves in, the mid- and upper-back (thoracic spine) rounds out, and the lower back (lumbar spine) curves in again. The base of the spine and the sacrum is a series of fixed bony segments that also curve in.

When you flatten your back or tuck your tailbone when you stand, you tend to inhibit the normal action of your abdominal muscles, distort the curves of your cervical and lumbar regions, compress your vertebral discs in an unhealthy way, compromise the stability-creating disconnection between your sacrum and pelvis or displace your abdominal organs by moving them back and down and it can interfere with your breathing.

That’s why Yoga can help to manage and reduce back pain. Yin Yoga, being a slow-paced quiet practice that cultivates inner and outer stillness, is particularly effective in reducing the causes of back pain and the stress that comes along with it. Yin Yoga can also help to release and lengthen chronically contracted fascia.

When we stress the fascia of our low back while being in a Yin Yoga pose and pay attention to the sensations, the nociceptors switch from being pain receptors to pressure receptors. With less pain, there’s less psychological stress, which in turn lowers our immune system.

Another tool we can use in our Yoga practice is our breath. By slowing down the breath, we activate the parasympathetic nervous system, and turn off the stress inducing sympathetic nervous system. This helps to reduce chronic inflammation and chronic contraction of the fascia in the low back.

Here’s a suggested sequence you can do to relieve back pain with Yin Yoga

·    Meditation

·    Butterfly (3 ~ 5 minutes)

·    Shoelace (3 ~ 5 minutes left and right)

 ·    On hands and knees and stretch like in cat-cow pose (1 min)

·    Square (3 ~ 5 minutes)

·    Rest on back flat on the mat (1 min)

·    Crescent Moon (3 ~ 5 minutes left and right)

·    Rest flat on stomach on the mat (2 min)

·    Seal or Sphinx (3 ~ 5 minutes)

·    Melting heart (3 ~ 5 minutes)

·    Rest flat on stomach on the mat (2 min)

·    Sleeping Swan (3 – 5 minutes left and right)

·    Rest on back flat on the mat (1 min)

·    Sleeping mermaid (3 – 5 minutes left and right)

·    Shavasana (10 min)

Notice what you are feeling while in the postures and when you come out of the poses, and even over the next few days. The intention is to heal, pay attention to sensations and to relax.

Sometimes back pain stems from emotional stress; whether it’s from a busy life, financial matters, guilt or due to lack of emotional support. The stress we experience in the mind gets experienced in the body. Once an actual incident occurs, certain areas of the body can go into spasm to protect the weak point, and the on-going pain and tension in the body, can result in our being more emotional.

In such circumstances, it's important to relax the body and the mind as much as possible. When the mind is quiet, it is easier to return to that place of trust and the calm region within. It also helps ease the nervous system towards the parasympathetic state which gives us the ability to rest and relax.

There are also a few ayurvedic solutions to reduce vata dosha, and provide relief from pain, particularly back pain: -

1. Stay warm

One of the main qualities of vata dosha is that it's cold. Comfort is the warmth factor to pain relief.

2. Reduce your intake of spices

Consuming a lot of spices in your food can have a very drying effect on the body and this can lead to constipation back pain.

3. Eat warm foods

Coldness creates constriction and congestion in the body, while the appropriate amount of heat provides expansion and allows the stool-carrying channels in the body (called srotas) to stay open so that you can eliminate your food.

4. Practice Uttanasana

Uttanasana (standing forward bend pose) for 30 seconds allows the body to eliminate lower back pain and the constriction of the stool-carrying channels caused by constipation.

5. Oil your body

If the skin is very dry, then nourishing your body with warm sesame oil before taking a warm shower makes the skin strong, moist and soft. Stress, exertion, depletion, and tiredness all increases vata dosha. Dryness and too much accumulated buildup of vata dosha leads to early aging in addition to pain in various parts of the body, especially the lower back.